


Warmth and Fire

by namio



Category: Tales of Zestiria
Genre: Alternate Universe - Role Reversal, I can't believe those are the words I had to type with my own two hands, M/M, Platonic Naked Bath-sharing, Sormik Week 2016, Well as platonic as nuzzling and hugging in the bath can be anyway, mid-game spoilers, please dont mind the awfully uninspired title, there is a 500 words segment in this describing sorey doing the laundry, trust me the title is the least of your problems here
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-11
Updated: 2016-08-11
Packaged: 2018-08-08 01:08:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,452
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7737166
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/namio/pseuds/namio
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Fire Trial's test of spirit affected everyone deeply, but they persevered.</p>
<p>Day 3: Fire</p>
            </blockquote>





	Warmth and Fire

It was hard to tell who was most anguished during the Fire Trial of spirit—Mikleo, or Lailah.

The flames of the sword licked at Lailah’s skin as she leaned her face closer to the blade, and Mikleo’s eyes were blown wide, body locked up in paralysis. Both of their eyes glistened with tears, but Mikleo’s face was pallid, and Sorey wanted nothing but to object, to step up and grab Mikleo’s shoulders because he _needed_ it. The room was hushed. Behind Lailah, Ekseo said nothing.

“Please Mikleo, don’t,” she whispered, barely loud enough to be heard over the crackling of fire. Sorey stood a bit closer, almost to the point of having their shoulders brush. Mikleo was trembling, like the tears that gathered on Lailah’s eyelashes as she looked down at him. Sorey clenched his fist as some of the gathering moistures in Mikleo’s eyes trickled down, too heavy to keep itself together. “You can’t bear this burden alone, Mikleo. You can’t force yourself to bear the great emotional burden of fear on top of your burden of choices as a Shepherd. The intensity of it all—it’ll break you, Mikleo. Please, let me.”

A deep breath. “I trust you, Lailah.”

As the blade came into contact with her skin, Mikleo closed his eyes.

“Wise answer,” Ekseo said.

Sorey’s hand rested on Mikleo’s shoulder. Mikleo, at the reassuring touch, took a deep breath.

Then—“Fethmus Mioma.”

* * *

 

Despite the victory they had just earned, everyone was silent as they walked back. Sorey had been out the entire time they were in the trial, always there to help solve the puzzles quicker, but now all he did was hover over Mikleo’s shoulder. Mikleo only squeezed the hand on his shoulder back, before continuing his quick pace back to Gododdin. Rose lingered behind, giving them space, and Lailah walked with her.

Fresh air never felt better before, but it didn’t really change much. The dry breeze grated exposed skin like sandpaper, made worse by the heat-induced sensitivity, and Mikleo finally turned.

“I’m going outside for a bit.”

And with that he left the village, closing the great doors behind him.

Rose let out a sigh. “All right. So I’m going to get us rooms—that sounds good?” Her eyes were on Sorey as she said that, and the no-nonsense line of her mouth told him that he needed to go after Mikleo, now. Sorey nodded. “Good. I’ll get two rooms, as always. Do you think there’s anything else he might need?”

Sorey didn’t really know whether there was anything in the past that he could rely on for clues, here. Mikleo _had_ been close to fire, despite his feelings on the matter. He had gotten used to Lailah, now, and no longer jumped when her fire storms triggered, or when she armatized with him. He had never, however, been forced to burn someone.

“I think a bath would be good?” Sorey said, tentative. He had no idea if they had such services here—most of the inns they visited had some form of such a thing, for an extra fee, but for one in such a secluded place… “Or water, really.”

“Consider it done. Now shoo, before Mikleo goes too far out. I’ll take care of the rest.”

“Thanks, Rose.”

He hurried outside, but that ended up unnecessary—Mikleo was sitting on the edge of the cliff, hunched over as his cloak laid on his lap, folded neatly. His outer shirt blew a bit freely with the wind; unbuttoned. Sorey sat next to him, and Mikleo tilted his head.

“There are more breezes here,” Mikleo offered. Sorey hummed.

When he placed his hand on Mikleo’s knee, lightly squeezing it, Mikleo pulled it off only to grasp it and intertwined their fingers. Ungloved, his hand was soft—the leather cushioned a lot of the friction against the wooden surface of his staff in battle. His left hand, donning only the sleeveless cloth glove of the Shepherd, was rough and scabbed.

Sorey pulled him closer, and Mikleo laid his head against his shoulder. The sweat and tears from earlier had gotten somewhat dry from the winds, now.

“Lailah’s fine,” he said. Mikleo made a noise to acknowledge the words.

They let the silence speak. The sun up here in the arid mountains was harsh, but they sat, anyway. Mikleo’s breathing was slow and even, as though he was asleep, but his lavender eyes were open and stared into the distance, unfocused. Sorey let his head rest on his, feathers on his earring tickling Mikleo’s cheek. They didn’t move.

The sun began slipping to the other side of the sky and only then did Mikleo move, breaking the natural silence with the sound of his heavy sigh. Sorey followed him, offered a hand as he stood up, and Mikleo took it. The shirt got buttoned up. He didn’t, however, don his cloak again. Sorey offered his arm.

“Gododdin might be accepting of my status as a Shepherd,” Mikleo said, a small smile tugging his lips, “but I don’t think they’re quite ready for a floating cloak. I can carry it myself.”

They didn’t stop holding hands as they walked back. If the villagers gawked at the fact that the Shepherd was holding hands with something invisible, they said nothing. Edna was hovering over a woman who showed her child how to plant various things, not saying anything, while Dezel made himself a menacing figure behind Rose as she chatted up the blacksmith. Lailah was nowhere to be seen.

Hearing their footsteps, Rose looked up. “Oh, right—Mikleo! I reserved the rooms. Just go inn.”

Dezel let out an annoyed huff. Mikleo rolled his eyes. “Thanks, Rose.”

She winked at Sorey and Sorey gave her a thumbs up back. At Mikleo’s confused look, he smiled and pushed him towards the inn. “It’s nothing. I asked her to reserve it ahead, so we can just head in immediately.”

Mikleo said nothing as he entered the inn. The innkeeper looked up, expression bright with something like compassion.

“Oh, Shepherd Mikleo! Didn’t realize you’d be here so soon. In any case, we’ve got water for you if you feel like taking a bath. Just tell me when. You know, nobody had ever gone that deep into Pureland before—never knew that it was such a holy place! All that heat can’t be good, though, so if you need to cool off, just give me the word.”

Mikleo’s eyes were wide as he took in her words. “A-all right. Thank you.”

Sorey nudged him. “Now sounds good, you know. You kinda smell.”

The withering glare he sent his was wasn’t at full power, but Sorey would take his victories, however small. The woman tilted her head at the way Mikleo reacted, but didn’t say anything—Sorey supposed that she, like the other villagers, really took their chief’s words to heart. It’s good, then, that he believed them.

“Now would be good, if that’s okay…?”

“Of course! Just follow me.”

The innkeeper bumbled her way to the back, and Mikleo, after sharing a look with Sorey, lagged behind her. The back area of the inn was homey, in a rickety sense—there were signs of half-done patching up, but it added a lived-in charm to it. Fenia Inn was not an inn that had frequent guests—considering that it was reopened thanks to Chief Slenge, it was out of commission until a few months ago. The innkeeper told them that last night, as they feasted on baked potato and stew.

“Here you go, Shepherd Mikleo.”

As she left, Mikleo turned to Sorey. “So…?”

“So? Go ahead, take a bath.” The place was clearly something that was not meant to be a normal bathroom—they had a normal bathroom in the inn, and this seemed to be more of a place of relative luxury. The walls were wood and stone, with a stone bathtub on the other end of the room. It was pretty big—Sorey couldn’t help but wonder how they got that in here.  On the wall there was a line of hooks for clothes, with his leather bag hanging on one of them, and soft, muddled sunlight streamed in from a wide paned window on the ceiling, somewhat dingy from dust.

Mikleo’s eyebrows rose. “With you watching me?”

“This wouldn’t be the first time, you know. We took baths together a lot.”

“Seriously? Sorey, we stopped when we were _eleven_.”

“Yeah, but we took baths in an open spring in front of everyone until we were nine anyway, I don’t know what your problem is.” Sorey crossed his arms. “Anyway, we’re _not_ arguing. I’ll leave, I’ll leave.”

He had the thought of using this time to get Mikleo a bit more relaxed, since there was a privacy here that they wouldn’t get elsewhere, but if Mikleo was going to be this uptight then he wasn’t about to push him. Today had pushed him plenty, after all—nobody was about to talk about the obvious block in the room, but they could find some other time. He could ask the others to give them privacy. Probably.

“Wait, no. Fine, stay.”

Sorey stayed.

Mikleo didn’t waste his time getting undressed. Both shirts were thrown haphazardly onto the stool on the corner of the room, his boots placed on the floor next to them, and his pants followed. Grabbing the large, wooden basin next to the tub, he scooped up water and threw his clothes into them, pouring the salt the innkeeper provided them on the wet fabric.

“That entire trial felt disgusting,” Mikleo said as he knelt on the floor, scrubbing the clothes furiously.

Sorey nudged him with his foot. “Mikleo. Just get washed up, won’t you? I’ll take care of that.”

“Miracles of miracles.”

Deciding to ignore the jab, Sorey chucked in his clothes too and knelt by the basin, taking over from Mikleo. It was true that the way that they divided their chores meant that usually Sorey didn’t do the laundry—he mostly kept the house in a vague semblance of order and made dinner, while Mikleo did the washing and mopping, with the dessert-making an optional additional task. He was also too short to put books back on the top shelves, but bringing that up was usually asking for a hard whack with the staff during sparring. “The bottle smells like flowers. You want that in your clothes?”

Mikleo, standing next to the bathtub and already getting washed up, scrunched up his nose. “Just a bit, please. I’m not particularly keen on smelling too strongly of flowers. It’s itchy.”

“Right.” They usually get by without much scent, anyway—sometimes Melody and Taccio made distilled floral essences for the smell, but Mikleo had a sensitive nose. And a sensitive taste bud. And sensitive skin. Well—the scars were, anyway. Which reminds him— “You might want to apply some of the skin lotions before heading out, if you’ve plans to.”

Splashes, and a pale hand reaching for the assortment of soap and shampoo next to the salt and scents. Sorey nudged it closer. “I know, I know.”

They did the rest in silence, letting the sounds of breathing and the body warmth of being so close to each other speak. Even as Mikleo stopped washing himself he stood there, hovering over Sorey in shadow as the latter squeezed moisture from the clothes. He wondered if he could get Dezel to help dry these out. Then again, there was plenty of sun in Gododdin, and they could probably get these dry out smelling better with some actual sunlight.

A toe poked his back. “If you’re done, get in.”

Sorey reached back to grab the offending leg. “Your leg is in my hands now.”

Mikleo made offended noises, and Sorey freed him. When he looked up, there was something calm and soft in his eyes, and Sorey smiled back. “Now get your butt in that water or so help me, Mikleo.”

The water was quite cold, they found out—Mikleo got in with a vaguely happy-sounding noise, and not long after, Sorey did, too. It took a bit of bent knees and sincere attempts to accommodate each other, despite the size of the tub, but they made it work—they always did, somehow. Mikleo was hunched a bit, tucked into Sorey, while the latter wrapped one arm loosely around him, the other rubbing circles on his shoulder. Sorey let his chin rest on Mikleo’s right shoulder, and Mikleo sagged even more, as though the act had left him bereft of energy and will, leaving his bones to collapse.

“Feel any better?”

Mikleo wasn’t about to cry again, he knew. Mikleo never liked crying—neither of them did, of course, but frankly Sorey would rather cry _to_ Mikleo, while Mikleo would rather Sorey never know. They’d been working on undoing the latter, this entire journey; Sorey had been upset that Mikleo hadn’t told him about the vision loss, for one, but after Glaivend Basin, they’ve been getting better. Mikleo actually spoke about his problems, even if it wasn’t always with him.

“I don’t even remember the fire. Why am I so afraid?” The question rang loud, and the aftermath was cold. “It’s been holding me back for so long, has been stopping me from doing so many things that would be beneficial for myself. It gave Lailah undue grief. And I don’t even _remember_ any of it—nothing at all. What gives?”

His fist clenched, and Sorey reached out to gently pry the fingers loose, one by one. His hand gripped Sorey’s instead, though softly. Mikleo let out a full body sigh, tilting his head back. Sorey nuzzled his neck.

“You’ve learned to work with your disadvantages, Mikleo,” Sorey said instead, words muffled by skin. “You’re working to overcome them. It doesn’t feel like much progress, but that’s far more progress than avoiding it.”

Mikleo said nothing as he closed his eyes, taking in deep, rhythmic breaths. Sorey could feel the dissatisfaction—but he also knew that Mikleo was trying to take it to heart, trying to believe in it.

It’s all right, though. Sorey would quite happily believe in it for both of them. He knew that Mikleo was strong enough for this, and he knew that they could make it and face Heldalf himself. One fumble, one understandable fumble that didn’t even result in an error wouldn’t change that—it would just make them all stronger. He wasn’t hopeless; they could work with this.

The water was pleasantly cool, erasing the remnants of the lapping heat from the lava and fire from the trial. Still, as always, they huddled close for warmth.

**Author's Note:**

> I /was/ actually this close to actually finishing this before 10th of August was over in my timezone, but my hands were too busy shaking and I was too busy crying. Oh well.
> 
> I won't be doing Day 4 and 5 and 6, I don't think. I have quite a lengthy idea planned out for Day 7 involving multiple AUs, and I'd like to dedicate my time to that. That, and I don't think I can handle the stress today; not that anyone's missing much, to be honest. My ideas sound like fluff and cute at first, but always end up so incredibly mundane even I'm a bit ¯\\_( ツ )_/¯ at my own incompetence


End file.
